Hello from the Kitsu team 👋
Summer is officially behind us! From the outside, things may have looked quiet: fewer announcements, slower replies here and there, and a calendar dotted with out-of-office notices. On the inside, though, it was anything but slow.
We took turns heading off on holidays so everyone could recharge, which meant the rest of the team kept things moving in the background. Those calmer weeks turned out to be the perfect time to focus. Without the usual rush, we dug into the work that needs space and attention, and we've come out the other side with a long list of new updates and launches ready to share.
In this Q3 edition of our build in public newsletter, we'll walk you through what we've been working on.
As always, thank you for following our journey and for all the feedback that shapes Kitsu!
Kitsu Updates 🦊
This quarter was all about helping teams plan, track, and collaborate more smoothly across productions.
- Per-Production Roles: A member can now have a different role on each production. For example, someone can be a supervisor on one show and an artist on another without needing separate accounts.
- Episode-Based Schedule for TV Series: Series schedules can now be organized by episode. You can move from a high-level overview to the detailed schedule of a sequence or edit in one click, and assign work directly from the schedule.
- Burndown View in All Tasks: You can see how much work is left compared to the time remaining. This helps you catch delays before they affect deliveries.
We also shipped a new All Shots page, task metadata per task type, team schedule improvements, redesigned Kanban boards and user calendars, direct mention replies, and player upgrades like trim handles.
Check out the public changelog for a full list of new improvements!
Infrastructure Updates 💽
Our infrastructure work kept moving steadily all quarter.
In June, we launched a FinOps approach to track and optimize our cloud spending more closely. We also improved our tooling for managing Kitsu instances, deployed the Kitsu MCP server, and made a first round of improvements to how videos are processed in the cloud.
Since then, we redesigned our on-premise monitoring so it uses the same tools as our cloud monitoring, giving us one consistent view across both. We also optimized the configuration of our PostgreSQL servers and strengthened the security of the administration bastion used to access Kitsu instances.
On the video side, normalization and playlist generation in the cloud are now faster and more efficient. We also deployed and improved Inu Video, our app for monitoring video processing jobs.
Finally, file and video management got a round of improvements, and Inu Kitsu, our instance management app, gained new features to make running Kitsu instances smoother.
Events 🎫
This quarter took us to two very different rooms.
Back in June, we spent the week at the Annecy International Animation Film Market (MIFA), where we met with demoed new features and caught up with customers.
Last week, we headed to the Blender Conference in Amsterdam where we gave a flash talk on Kitsu.
It was the opportunity to announce the date of our next Kitsu summits. We will tell you more about that later in a dedicated announcement.
Finance 💰
Q3 was a solid quarter for revenue growth. Our treasury remains stable, and we closed several deals that set us up well for the rest of the year.
On the cost side, we managed a small reduction in our infrastructure spending. Our OVH public cloud costs now come to €7,182 per month. It's not a dramatic cut, but every bit of efficiency helps us stay sustainable and keep investing in the product.
This quarter also marked an exciting milestone: we welcomed our first 8 Kitsu Partners! These studios help by supporting Kitsu while keeping their setup self-hosted. We're grateful to have them on board as we grow the program.
If you use Kitsu, please keep supporting us!
Every subscription, recommendation, and contribution helps us keep building an open, independent production management tool for the animation and VFX community.
New metrics page 📊
In the spirit of building in public, we've launched a revamped metrics page where you can follow our public KPIs and see how we're doing behind the scenes.
Communication 🗣️
For the past 6 months, we have put real effort into rethinking how we want to share Kitsu with the world.
Our efforts are paying off with significant milestones.
Fresh videos for 2026 🎬
Our tutorial videos dated back to 2023, and Kitsu has changed a lot since then. We recorded a brand-new set that reflects the current interface and workflows, so what you see on screen now matches what you see in the app. This is only the first batch, and more videos are on the way in the coming months.
Revamped product documentation 📚
We reworked the documentation from the ground up. It's now easier to search, so you can find answers quickly, and it's organized to help you level up progressively, from your first project setup to more advanced production workflows. If you haven't checked it in a while, it's worth another look.
Writing in public ✍️
In the spirit of building in public, we're opening our blog to external contributors. Studio artists, production managers, TDs, and developers all have stories and know-how worth sharing, and we want to give them a place to do it. We're also open-sourcing the blog content itself, so anyone can suggest improvements, fix mistakes, or build on what's there. If you have an idea for an article, we'd love to hear from you.
A new integrations page 🔌
The Kitsu community has built some impressive tools and integrations over the years, and they deserve more visibility. Our new integrations page puts community contributions front and center. Built something that connects Kitsu to your pipeline? Reach out, and we'll be happy to feature it.
Chantology
Studios & Productions 🏫
We continue to welcome new studios into the Kitsu family:
- Armada Studios
- Chimera
- Cosmos Maya India Private Limited
- Coup de foudre
- Dibulitoon Studio SL
- Efxlab.xyz
- Ellipse Studio
- John Pomeroy Productions
- Komadoli Studio
- Le Quartier Animé
- LISAA
- MotionDream.AI
- New3dge School
- Pencilish Animation Studios
- Pinata
- Studio 3000
- Studio Wist
- ZincoTools
- Zorba Group
As always, thank you to every team trusting us with your pipelines, we're excited to keep supporting you as you grow.
In case you missed it, make sure to read our case study on Sparx*, a studio based in HCMC, Vietnam working for Hollywood!
Closing Notes ✍️
That's a wrap on Q3! It's been another quarter of focused work, and we're proud of how much of it is now in your hands: new ways to plan and track productions, fresh videos and docs, and more room for the community to share what they've built!
None of this happens without you. Every bug report, feature request, forum post, and conversation at events helps us decide what to build next, so please keep it coming. If there's something you'd love to see in Kitsu, or a story you'd like to tell on our blog, just reach out.
Thanks for reading and being part of the journey! 🙌
See you in December for the last issue of the year in our Build in Public series! 👋
